


Just Tonight, We Share A Moment

by lunaticsong



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: CAN BE CONTINUED, Canon Compliant, Could Be Canon, Cuddling, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Link pines too, Love, Royalty, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In, Unrequited Love, Work In Progress, no kiss yet, or so Zelda thinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaticsong/pseuds/lunaticsong
Summary: Zelda goes onto a search for ancient technology. Link accompanies her thankfully, because without her personal guard the Princess would not make it through this snowstorm.Taking refugee in a cabin, the two need to warm up so they cuddle. Enjoy!
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Just Tonight, We Share A Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read.

The snow painted the landscape white and icy needles hit her red cheeks as Zelda tried to keep up with Link, a snow-blurred figure two steps ahead of her. He didn’t seem very fazed by the storm despite his coat being no match to the heavy clothes of the princess. She was covered in several layers from head to toe, a shawl over her mouth and nose and her hands in gloves under her coat, the hood drawn as far over her forehead as possible without blocking her vision. 

But all the layers were of no use, rather the opposite. Cold snowflakes had soaked all outer layers of clothing and snowflakes clung to her eyelashes in true winter’s fashion.

“Link!”, she gasped, the wet and freezing shawl clinging to her face. She was exhausted, everything hurt and her fingers had gone numb a long time ago. Maybe an eternity, time had been hard to tell. 

The knight turned around immediately and Zelda saw worry furrow his brows. 

She held up a hand. “I cannot continue in this speed, please slow down.” Link nodded, and then pointed in the direction they had been walking in. “There’s a cabin.”, his voice wavered through the howling wind. Picking up the way a bit slower, he left it at that.

Never a man of many words, yet he surprised Zelda often by bringing twice as much information across in half the words her royal surroundings used. He valued his words, not throwing them around in flowery arrangements like the advisors and visitors in Hyrule’s castle. She had always liked that. 

Though, right now Zelda couldn’t appreciate it. The snow stung her face too much and she shivered hard enough for her teeth to shake. Simply locking her eyes on Link’s back, she followed her personal guard through the raging, white storm. Hopefully the cabin was close. 

The time that passed while the frozen princess kept fighting with her numb feet to continuously follow Link seemed like an eternity.   
She called out again, but the storm drowned her voice and she remained unheard. A sob caught in her throat. The blue figure in front of her increased the distance between them. 

Below the icy paralysation, Zelda felt her knees hit the ground. For a second, her body caught her mind in the fall and panic froze through her heart. He had to turn around! She couldn’t die here?   
But her body stayed crumpled and cold on the ground, her head heavy and her blood slow. Just her own rattled breathing made Zelda wake up from her paralysation. 

Taking a deep, controlled breath, she forced herself to gather her mind and focus. Blinking the snow away and yelling as loud as she could, she managed to get her guard’s attention. 

With pale eyes, Zelda saw Link run through the snow towards her, dropping down next to her and taking her face into his hands. “Princess, get up.” His blue eyes searched her own. After receiving no visible reaction, he insistently said: “Zelda. Listen, just a bit further. Get up.” 

His hands grabbed hers and he helped her stand up. Tightly holding her hand, Link turned back around and marched towards a dark shadow. Zelda concentrated on his hand and closed her eyes, blindly holding onto the feeling of his skin through the freezing wind. 

After something vaguely between seconds and hours, the two reached the shadow revealing itself as a wooden cabin. A small house, but it promised a fire and food. Zelda stumbled inside and collapsed on the floor. 

She heard Link shut the door and the wind silencing behind the walls, the sudden quiet deafening to her ears. Then he rummaged around for a while. A crackle caught her attention as warm dancing light filled the room. 

Link sat huddled in front of the small fire he just created with the firewood stored in the cabin, looking up to her and offering a smile. Zelda gathered her strength, sat up and shuffled to the flames. “Take off the wet clothes, princess.”, the warrior told her. “We need to get warm.” 

She carefully unwrapped the shawl and brushed off the hood, revealing her pointed ears and blushed cheeks from the cold. After struggling with the soaked, icy cold gloves for a while, she sighed in frustration and dropped her hands back into her lap. 

Link raised a hand in a helping gesture and tilted his head questioningly. “You may.”, she murmured gratefully. His gentle hands removing the gloves were already warm and much more patient than hers. 

The heat from his fingers felt like liquid gold dropping on her skin, warming Zelda up and bringing back the feeling in her fingertips. “Thank you.” 

Link wrapped his hands around both of hers, holding them tight and rubbing circles with his thumbs. “Better?”, he asked. “Yes, much better.”   
She sighed again. “Couldn’t you have talked me out of this stupid idea?” 

They had been travelling north, following a path Zelda had mapped out beforehand in the castle, hoping to find ruins and discover ancient technology, exploring and studying it.   
Everything had worked out and they had found several interesting things that could possibly support them in their preparation for the Calamity Ganon. It would have been perfectly fine if the princess wouldn’t have decided in Cliffow, a rather large village at the borders to the snowy mountains far north, to head into unknown territory. 

She had felt adventurous and confident from her latest discoveries, and at the hint of a villager, the researching princess and her royal guard had gone into the snowy valley north after her wishes. 

She was aware that Link would never directly refuse an order she gave. He was fiercely loyal and fully committed to protect her, but whenever she asked him to weigh in or contradict her, he would say – 

“I am not your advisor. I am your guard.” Focusing back to their current situation, sitting in an abandoned cabin in the middle of a snowstorm, Zelda had to admit it was her fault. 

But she had had a feeling that here was something waiting for her. Only this storm, apparently. “Yes, I know... Do we have anything to eat?”, she asked after her now warmed body lost all adrenaline and only weak exhaustion stayed. 

Link let go of her hands and nodded. Zelda peeled off the rest of her outer layer of snow soaked clothes while watching him preparing food. He was talented in many surprising things, but his passion and precision in cooking might be the most surprising one. 

He was a hylian warrior, the youngest royal guard in history and the best archer the Princess had ever met. Besides that he was destined to wield the master sword – everything in his life called for him to be an outright fight oriented, merciless warrior but when he had been made to Princess Zelda’s personal guard, she was delighted to discover he was not only more attentive and sensitive than he appeared but skilled in cooking as well. 

Zelda sat as close to the fireplace as she could without burning up, warming her feet and hands and waiting for Link to finish. “Let’s stay here for the night and head back in the morning.”, she said. 

Link nodded and gave her one of the two small bowls of pumpkin butter soup in his hands. Quite unroyally, the Princess scarfed it down in mere minutes and dropped her head back contentedly when the warmth filled her stomach. She blinked to her left and caught Link absentmindedly staring at her. 

A flutter joined the warmth she felt. He used to do this often when he first became her knight, and she had always blushed. But over time he had stopped staring at her, or she had stopped noticing. 

Just now, in this moment, Zelda couldn’t keep herself from catching his eyes and staring back. It ought to have been awkward, but it wasn’t. Link communicated a lot with his silences, and right now Zelda understood why. 

The feeling of liquid gold in her blood returned. She remembered his warm hands touching her hands and a small, shy part of her shortly imagined his hands to travel further, brushing over her arms and waist in the same daydream manner he stared at her face with. 

Shocked, Zelda mentally shook her head and broke the eye contact.   
In Hylia’s name, what was she thinking about! 

She cursed herself while the shock wore off, still struck with horror. What would her father think, if she would abandon her duty as Crown Princess like that and break practically every rule she was raised with? How could she even consider this again? What kind of mindless person would she be if she would indulge in these girl fantasies again? Zelda criticised herself silently. 

Zelda had been dreaming about Link a lot after they first met, admittedly. She had been young, but her future and duties had been instilled deeply into her afterwards so she had drowned all these dreams, forced herself to forget and call it a child’s imagination. To have those thoughts rise again now was not only unfortunate, but very unexpected as well. 

Link adjusted his weight and Zelda snapped back to the present. 

Now, after the initial relief of heat she had felt escaping the cold, wild storm to a cabin with a fireplace, she noticed the creaks letting in wind and the cold creeping outside the door sneaking into the cabin. A shiver run through her body, and she scolded herself for not drying her clothes immediately next to the fire. Then she could have worn them now. 

Link got up and picked up his dry coat from the fireside. He had been a step ahead of her. “Let us sleep.”, he suggested. 

Zelda got up and draped all her clothes apart from her last layer along the fireplace, then took the blanket the knight offered her from the bag – the one thing they had saved from soaking through with snow and hailstones, and she was very grateful for the blanket now even if she had intended to leave it at the village. Link had simply taken it with them, wisely. 

“Link? There’s a bed here, but it is the only one. And it is too far away from the fireplace, so I wouldn’t sleep there…” Zelda said, unsure. Just being three steps away from the fire sent chills through her body again, and even the warm blanket and her blue underclothes didn’t help. 

Link looked around, thinking. After a breath, he said: “Then we sleep on the floor.” Without further ado, he laid down his coat to the floor, and squatted down. Looking up to her, he asked: “You mind sleeping close? For sharing body warmth.” 

Yes, she minded that a lot. Her fluttering heart minded strongly, but how should she explain that? So Zelda denied his question and tried acting as casual as she could while laying down on the thick coat, putting the blanket over her and the man next to her. 

The goddess-be-damned warm man. 

They laid shoulder to shoulder on their backs, and Zelda went into a mental state of absolute tension. Hyper aware of the body next to her, breathing and radiating warmth. 

She couldn’t sleep like that, plus even though Link was between her and the door, she still felt the sharp wind getting inside. 

Zelda didn’t notice that she shivered until Link touched her arm and looked at her. “This cold?”, he asked and when she shrugged and smiled helplessly, he threw her a crooked smile. “Can’t let Her Royal Highness the Princess of Hyrule freeze to her death.” His tone carried a barely hidden teasing smile. He knew she disliked him addressing her this formally. 

Then he caught her completely off guard.   
“Come here.”, Link said softly. 

He turned to face her and opened his arms a bit. After taking her utter surprise as hesitation, he added: “I promise, it’s warm.” This was so very Link-like, to just disregard all social rules and help in the most natural manner. 

Zelda felt the Goddess judge her when she gave in, rolling on her side and burying her cold face in his chest. The liquid gold run through her body faster than before and set her on fire as Link wrapped one arm around her waist to draw her closer and the other around her shoulders, embracing her fully. 

His hand settled on her back, letting heat seeping into her skin.   
Zelda felt bad. The embrace was what she had dreamed about, but Link was just offering warmth as logical solution in their situation, and she exploited his generosity with ulterior motives. This is what she thought, until she felt him exhale deeply and melt into her body, all tension leaving him abruptly. 

Link buried his face in her hair and Zelda was only feeling blessed, the guilt leaving her immediately. He had needed this as much as she did, apparently. With a hum, she shifted closer to him still and felt his hands almost possessively holding her in his arms. 

She allowed herself to enjoy this moment, relishing it and deciding that just tonight, it was acceptable. 

Just tonight, she could admit how warm his body was, how good he smelled and how much she had wanted this for years. His chest transferred every breath of his to her, calming her with his slow rhythm. 

The darkness took her away fast after that, and the morning brought streaks of snow-blue sunshine through the cracks of the cabin, a fireplace filled with embers and the vague feeling of happiness. 

The two refugees from the storm had entangled their bodies throughout the night. Zelda had turned around on her other side, her back pressed flush to Link. His arm was draped around her waist and resting on her stomach, just below the hem of her shirt so that their bare skin touched and her legs woven with his.   
She woke up with her head turned towards him, so their faces were close and every breath of his tickled her neck. 

Link was already awake. He released her slowly, almost hesitantly as soon as he saw she was wake and got up. “The storm is over.” 

Zelda nodded. “Do you know the way back?”  
“I know the direction.”, he replied. 

Quickly, they gathered all their stuff and dressed fully again. To Zelda’s relief, the air between them was not weird, rather the opposite. They were content and familiar with each other just like before this night. 

“Careful, it will be bright.”, Link warned her. In the cabin the embers and the slightest bit of sunlight was the only lightsource, dimly illuminating the room. Outside, the blazing white snow reflected the morning sun and indeed blinding the Princess. 

Yesterday’s storm had left a snowed landscape, but no clouds covered the sapphire blue sky. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful in it’s white serenity. 

Without hurry but not moving slow, they headed back to Cliffow. Sharing peaceful silence and walking in sync, the time passed much faster than on their way to the cabin. 

In the evening they reached the village, and Zelda was delighted to find an old, deactivated but not quite decayed guardian within twenty minutes from the village. 

The atmosphere between them felt like they were sharing a secret now.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this, I can continue and make this oneshot to a story. Please leave feedback in case you want more of this!


End file.
